SC90 Electric Guitar

as featured in the May, 1997
Guitar Shop Magazine.

"Ah, Carvin necks: the luxury of a Mercedes-Benz, the speed of a Lamborghini, the fussiness of a Jaguar. If you're a "fast neck" fan like I am, Carvin necks will surely float your boat. Better still, they're extremely consistent from model to model."

The 6-String Lamborghini (Carvin's Wickedly Fast SC90)

The SC90 is, in a sense, Carvin's Les Paul, owing to its single-cutaway body, dual-humbucker configuration, 3-way toggle, and a pair of volume and tone controls. A classic Paul, right? Wrong. Actually, the SC90 is a classic Carvin,having many of the same accouterments as their other models, including a neck-through-body construction, a 24-fret ebony fingerboard with an extra-flat 15" radius, a 25" scale, Sperzel tuners, a well-shielded electronics cavity, and an extra-slick finish. our test guitar came in a nice brown sunburst, as well as having sexy rounded sides, which is a $40 up-charge over the standard squared sides

This guitar came with a Tune-O-Matic bridge/stop tailpiece combination and Carvin's new C22 humbuckers, which feature one row of adjustable polepieces and one row of fixed "slugs" like a vintage PAF. However there are 22 polepieces per pickup here, hence its name, and they give your strings a magnetic bath so you won't lose any signal during string bends. The body has alder wings attached to a neck-through section of maple. And I like this: According to the catalog, the action on the SC90 is guaranteed to be 1/16" off the fretboard. Alas, on the guitar I recieved, the strings were literally on the fingerboard when I opened it up, apparently the result of an usual packing error.

[According to Carvin's Dave Flores, "Since we rushed the SC90 out for this review, we didn't have enough time for our new prototype case to dispel its glue mosture - usually two or three days. As a result, the the ebony fingerboard soaked up that moisture and straightened the neck out, eliminating the necessary bow. As you know, we have shipped thousands of Carvin guitars to our end-users, and it is rare as hen's teeth for this situation to happen."]

The sound of the axe is also appealing. With an alder body, maple neck, and humbuckers, you're going to get a tone more like a Strat with stacked humbuckers than a mahogany-bodied/-necked Les Paul, despite the Gibsonesque body shape. This was especially evident in the center pickup position (i.e., both 'buckers on), where the tone was definitely twangier than the nasally honk of a Les Paul in the same position. Again, this is a Les Paul in shape only, and if yuo want true LP fatness, go buy a Paul [Carvin's Note: The Custom packages offered by Carvin will emulate a Les Paul with mahogany neck, body and maple top for the body (along with rounded body edges and matching headstock).] The tone on this SC90 can best be summed up as fat twang. I could especially see blues, roots-rock, and country players digging it.

And now on to the neck. Ah, Carvin necks: the luxury of a Mercedes-Benz, the speed of a Lamborghini, the fussiness of a Jaguar. If you're a "fast neck" fan like I am, Carvin necks will surely float your boat. Better still, they're extremely consistent from model to model. I've tried a batch of Carvins over the last few years, and each is a carbon-copy of the last (thank god for CNC machines). With a slick slab o' ebony as the fingerboard and 24 well-dressed frets, the SC90 is a guitar made ofr high-caliber playing. It shouldn't be any surprise that a lot of Carvin endorsers are chopmeisters, either being chicken-pickin' country wizards, fusioneer, or shredders; then again, the Monkees play 'em, too. Some players complain that Carvin necks tend to need more tweaking than your average electric, but that's a personal matter between you and your truss-rod wrench. In any case, I recommend everyone try an SC90, at least for the opportunity to grope one of the company's fast, smooth heeled necks.

Available only by direct mail, this axe also comes with a money-back guarantee (sans shipping charges), two-year warranty, and a price to beat the band. if you want a guitar that "vintage classic" when you look at it, but screams "Ferrari" when you start playing the SC90 could be the hot-rod guitar for you.

- Pete Prown, Guitar Shop Magazine